


Divine Inspiration

by IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Prejudice, Gen, Kid Fic, Origin Story, Orphanage, Switzerland, Young Gellert Grindelwald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26675740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis/pseuds/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis
Summary: Where did Gellert Grindelwald come from? Who was his family? No one knew.Who gave him his name, and how, was a little less of a mystery - but certainly out of the ordinary.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	Divine Inspiration

**Author's Note:**

> \- see end notes for a trigger warning -
> 
> Grindelwald is the name of a village in Switzerland, in the Bernese Alps. Discovering this while randomly browsing a map of the Alps nagged at me, and before I knew it... I had this fic

The babies born to young women ‘on holiday’ in Switzerland were not named after their mothers nor after their fathers, lest the children be tempted to go looking for the families that were ashamed to acknowledge their existence. But a child could not make their way in the world without a name, so these children were named first for the saint on whose day they were born, and last for the hometown of one of the Sisters attending the child’s birth. And so, on the 29th of August, 1882, Gellert Grindelwald (and hadn’t there been an argument over whether Gerard or Gellert would be the more correct choice) was born to a young woman who, for the life of her, could not recall the father, but who knew better than to claim that there never had been one.

The child was cursed with bad dreams, but in the daytime he was charming - unfailingly soft-spoken and polite to the nuns, and a ready playmate for the other children - entertaining without resorting to favoritism or cruelty. He had dimples and merry eyes that caused the Mother Superior to despair. Nothing good could come from his physical appearance, she said, because he would get away with anything with a smile. And he did.

As easily sociable as Gellert was, the boy seemed to prefer his own company above that of any other. The Mother Superior, for her part, would have preferred for him to have never been left to his own devices, but he managed somehow to sneak away regularly in spite of everyone's best efforts. It had become routine to find the imp in rooms or drawers or cabinets that ought to have been locked, or with cookies that should have been too high to reach, or at the tops of trees whose lowest branches were eight feet or more above the ground. But when he was found, he would apologize so sweetly, his hands behind his back, his face cast down, then looking up slowly, head tilting to one side as he smiled shyly. There was nothing to do but smile back and assign a handful of prayers, and somehow forget the offense until next time. This had been happening for about four years before Sister Germain finally put together that Gellert had magic.

“That poor girl,” Sister Germain said to herself, remembering Gellert’s young mother. “That man she did not remember must have been a wizard.” And she added several unflattering remarks about the tendency of men to shirk their responsibilities and act as if they can get away with anything – remarks which we will not be repeating here, as if you have never heard such things said before.

A child so handsome and winning ought to have been adopted by this time. However, six-year old Gellert seemed to have a knack for going missing particularly just before a likely couple arrived, almost as if he knew that they were coming, as well as what might happen if he were spotted. Sister Germain understood why Gellert might think he wanted to stay in the orphanage forever, surrounded by indulgent nuns and mysteriously unlocking cabinets, but a child could not be allowed to make his own choices about his upbringing. A convent, an orphanage - a muggle institution of any kind - was no place for a magical child to grow. She hoped instead that Gellert's behavior grew out of an instinct of self-preservation, not allowing himself to be taken deeper and more irretrievably into the muggle world, out of reach of the one magical person in his orbit.

Sister Germain, as you have likely guessed already, was a witch. Or perhaps you had not yet guessed, as witches are not, generally speaking, known for being religious. Being able to do magic takes all the – well – _magic_ out of miracles, for most people. Not for Sister Germain, who thought that there was a difference between magic and miracle. Not that she could explain the difference – she just _felt it_ , in her bones, the way she had felt, when watching the dust motes dance in a beam of light in the Beauxbatons library, that she was meant to be a nun. The way she felt, in the moment that she realized that Gellert was a wizard, that she had been put in this convent for the purpose of rescuing him and allowing him to grow up in an environment in which he would need neither to hide nor fear his magic.

This feeling was all the prompting Sister Germain needed to return to her given name of Lucy and her family name of Sacdetir, and to abscond with Gellert to the house of her aunt, who had, after being disowned following a scandalous divorce, Anglicized her maiden name and moved to England, pretending to have lived there her life-long.

“You cannot stay here, Lucy. Would you have the boy go to Hogwarts? With a German name? And no history? He will be discriminated against!”

The supposed German-ness of the name was not the problem. Gellert had only a Swiss name and a Hungarian name. Lucy wondered for a moment if they had not done Gellert a disservice not to have given him a middle name. She might have called him Germain, and so added a French name, but that seemed to be too many Gs. The problem was that one could _not_ say whether he was, in fact, German or French, Swiss or Hungarian. Lucy could not give him a nationality, or a family history, or - most importantly - a known Wizard's name. Even if Lucy claimed to have birthed him, her family would never give him the name Sacdetir - one unknown parent was one too many. Gellert would have to make do with the two names he had - names that revealed no connection to any Wizarding family.

“Well, he cannot go to Durmstrang, Aunt Bathilda. They take only Purebloods.”

“I am not sure that that is true, dear. I think it is more accurate to say that Durmstrang takes students by application only, and only Purebloods apply. It would be interesting to see what they would do with Gellert’s application. Or you can move back to the Continent and send him to Beauxbatons. But here – does the boy even speak English?”

Gellert did not speak English. He spoke French and German, and enough Latin to recite the Psalms and the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster. In the absence of any other discipline, he had been asked to say Ave Marias and Pater Nosters quite often. His rosary beads were well-worn for a child of his age.

“He is only six! There is plenty of time for him to learn English. But in truth, I had hoped to keep him home. You know there is no school he can attend that will be any safer than Hogwarts - he will be discriminated against everywhere. We could teach him at home and introduce him to his peers only once he is of age. At seventeen, he might play the mystery to his advantage.”

“A child cannot grow up without peers, Lucy. I suggest that you return with him to the Continent, so that he may attend Beaubaxtons, as you did. The French are more accepting of this sort of thing.”

"I do not understand why we place so much more value on peers than on parents," Lucy countered, unwilling, in these first hours of having Gellert, to contemplate surrendering him to a Wizarding school. The orphanage had been a convent first of all; the nuns there outnumbered the children. But at Beauxbatons, there had been little hope for adequate supervision. Some children fared better than others. Injuries of all sorts, physical and spiritual, were commonplace. And Gellert, she worried, would be at more risk than most. She had less than five years in which to form him in the habit of confiding in her, in following her example, in internalizing her values and acting to please her - to raise him so that he would continue to do all those things when she was miles away.

Bathilda raised up her hands in surrender. “You may stay here the week, my sweet Lucy. But you need to devise a better plan.”

Lucy did not audibly disagree, but she felt that she had been getting along very well, her twenty-eight years, following Divine Inspiration. She would not worry about next week until it came - or until she got a _feeling_ about what to do next. 

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING:  
> This fic contains two brief allusions to forgotten sex - with the implication of an obliviation being involved
> 
> And for those who need an extra side of angst with their Grindelwald:  
> In this little universe, Gellert Grindelwald is born on Albus Dumbledore's first birthday - a phenomenon that I was once told foretells terrifically bad luck for a couple, the denouement being worsened, not least, by the giddy heights of cosmic inevitability felt in that first moment of realizing the coincidence.


End file.
